Thursday, August 13, 2009

Today it was again day with Mahindra Classic shoe work, the rear left side tube in the tyre was flat. Not worried as I noticed the flatted tyre in the office parking lot and changed spare wheel.When reached tyre store found that the mouth of the tube inside the tyre is gone and needs replacement, BF Goodrich tube gone in.How about rotating the shoes? Yeah, that is what I was thinking and same has been done today.I had issues with my steering directions last time during the offroad so my mechanic corrected the issue with tie road in the steering system. He suggested me to do the wheel alignment, hurray flatted tyres took the credit today the wheel alignment also corrected with computer assisted machines.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Be nature friendly, that is what we always say when we talk about offroading. At time we have to run over bushes on the forest offroad but we always very cautious in protecting nature wherever we can. We normally carry litter bags to carry the litter back from our offroad trips, we don't cut tree or harm animals.

But during recoveries we do run into issues as we need to rob around trees to get hold for our winching operations. Some times we found the tree trunk bark got damaged, a simple search on the internet and winch company websites shown something called Tree Trunk Protector. If something I can achieve by spending money to save environment is always on the welcome list.The latest recovery gear equipment is that of Tree Trunk protector, This one is 3tonne direct pull capacity and if used with basket model (routing the strap around the tree's trunk is called basket model pull) I can achieve 6tonne capacity which is more than sufficient for a Jeep weighting 1.4tonne plus 100 to 200 kilo grams on board.

I have also got a recovery gear bag custom made for the recovery stuffs along with the Tree Trunk Protector. Hmmm life is more easy now to carry all of them at once. No need to worry about forgetting something out of the complete gear whenever going for offroad.This bag is made of tarpaulin kind of canvas material and very strong to hold all the heavy stuffs.

There are issues associated with this change1. There is no ready made LSD kit available for DANA 44 / 19 spline axle

2. The currently available MM550 LSD (Trac-Lok) is matching to DANA 44 differential but spider side axle spline count is 30 against 19 in Classic3. The axle track of MM550 is not same with CL340 DP - Classic, as heard from experts(CJ/CL 340 = 48 inches, MM540 = 51 inches and NGCS MM540 = 53 inches). but I have not measured the size of MM550 and Classic axles yet.

With the above constraints, I have few options to implement LSD setup on my Classic1. Take the complete differential setup for front and rear from MM550 and use it in Classic2. Take only the LSD from MM550 and custom fabricate axle to fit Classic axle length setup, this exercise may lead me to convert the semi floating axle to full floating type (Though bit tricky but I know a expert who has done it for his Jeep earlier)3. Buy a on the shelf Dana 44 / 19 spline Auburn Limited Slip(http://www.drivetrainwarehouse.com/PDT259648.aspx) from overseas and get it installed in the existing housing and axle setup.

With the above constraints and options I've also got a MM550 LSD in my hands (just in case if I opt to take option no. 2)Watch out this space for more information on how my LSD project is achieved.

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Right from the day I found my Mahindra Classic, the only person who is fully supporting me for any query on the Jeep front is none other than the National JEEP Daddy Mr. Uday Bhan Singh (Mr.UBS). One must interact with him to really believe how good and down to earth person Mr.UBS. I never think twice to take inputs on Jeeps from Mr.UBS and he is a living Jeep dictionary or service manual.Today was a great day as I got a chance to meet him 2nd time in the last 3 years. As a jeeper meeting him itself a great thing, but my day was made with multiple surprises. Guess what ? Mr. UBS brought a lot of Jeep stuffs for my Classic and CJ3B. I went to the Chennai central station to receive him and rushed to the platform where the coramandal express was slowly came to halt, As instructed by him earlier I was standing on the entrance of the three tier A/C compartment B3. At first I didn't recognise him, but he spot me on the second and waved me. I was so happy to see Mr.UBS today.I have been always dreaming of fitting a PTO stuff on my classic and finally today I got a simple PTO utility that rotates with a gear lever. Thinking of such a celebrity like person carrying heavy weight PTO and stuffs for me on the train, I'm astonished.I've also got original drop down tail gate and swing open stepney door for my CJ3B along with a set of headlight and parking light guards and side view mirror rod.I must say this, expect the swing open spare wheel door rest of the stuffs are brand new original products. I'm the jeep items directly from JEEP god today.

Sunday, August 9, 2009

It was quite drive compare to my old XDP, smooth and very powerful.Now following has got into my Explorer

1. Peugeot XD3P 2456CC 76BHP motor and usable bell housing2. Bolero/MM550 type paper element airfilter with element damage indicator3. 65amps alternator with vaccum pump (replaced the independant vaccum pump due to unavailablity of belt also the engine sump of XDP has replaced the XD3P engine oil sump as there is not inlet pipe for vaccum pump oil circulation)4. four core radiator5. Clutch and Accelerator cables were replaced6. Radiator hoses have been replaced7. Engine water jacket has been replaced with the M&M latest plastic part8. complete oil service including engine, gearbox, differntials and break oil top up done9. Clutch release bearing and fork changed

After the brief pause due to weekend holiday at the garage, now the jeep engine fixing is back on the rails. We bought a brand new Air-Filter setup of Mahindra Bolero vehicle that has paper filter element in it. Sure thing that it is going to reduce much of noise and give clean air to the engine to breath.The new radiator is finally installed on the grill and the grill assy is now fitted on the jeep too.Also the engine is mounted and clutch issue is fully solved, explorer sleeping just before making it maiden trip after the grand power transplantation project.By tomorrow we will fix the air filter and an issue that has stopped our schedule today. The problem is that my earlier power plant got vacuum pump behind the alternator and oil circulation tube initiated from the engine sump and traverse through the vacuum pump to reach the oil filter assy where the oil pressure switch was connected.

Now with the current engine, there is no outlet on the sump and the vacuum pump also has no connectivity from oil filter. You know what I need to use a different oil pressure gauge which will take the reading with oil tube that runs from engine block to the dash board. This is seems to be a age old method, since there is no options for oil pressure electrical switch on this engine, I'm left with option.